


You Got the Answer

by MakeTheMoon



Category: Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Bisexual Character, Coming Out, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining, background short-term het pairing, because i couldn't decide who i wanted to top more, switching mid-coitus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeTheMoon/pseuds/MakeTheMoon
Summary: It starts with Zach hearing Chris have sex with someone who is decidedly not him, and it gets significantly more romantic after that.Chris is quiet, which is a blessing if Zach's ever heard one.
Relationships: Chris Pine/Original Female Character(s), Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto
Comments: 19
Kudos: 73





	You Got the Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I really headcanon them with particular love languages (Chris is physical touch/quality time; Zach is gifts/acts of service). Maybe one day they’ll figure each other’s out and actually use them for their intended purpose, but for now they're just projecting and trying their best, okay?
> 
> Unbeta'd.

It’s torture. Actual, real life torture, he’s sure. Like it’s not bad enough to have a _thing_ for his best friend, something he’s been able to avoid for the entirety of his life until now; no, now he’s got to lie here and listen.  
  
Zach had left the party early claiming jetlag, which wasn’t untrue, really, he _had_ just gotten back to Los Angeles a couple hours before showing up at Chris’s place. He hadn’t seen the others in a year, more in some cases. He hadn’t even seen Chris in months. And it was Chris’s idea, once the contracts were settled and they were allowed to talk about it with each other, to have a Trek party. They had all been hesitant to sign on for a fourth - none of them wanted Trek to be the only thing they were known for, and they had all agreed that it had to be unanimously decided that the script was actually worth it to go through with it.  
  
It felt good to be back with this family. He missed them to the point it hurt, sometimes, and with the strength of the hugs and the closeness with which they sat together on the couches and the floor, all over Chris’s living room, it seemed like he wasn’t the only one feeling that.  
  
They’re all here, all the main cast and their significant others, and the new crowd had come to be initiated into their weird little group - new director, a couple new cast members, their own significant others.  
  
It was a small get together, but no one could say that when he put his mind to it Chris couldn’t throw one hell of a party. By 1am they had run out of alcohol and Chris had called an Uber to deliver more; the living room looked like the site of a recent tornado tragedy, and the kitchen wasn’t much better off.  
  
It was around then, he guessed, that he was just unsober enough to be a little afraid of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. All night he’d been fine. He’d spent years around Chris while he was in and out of relationships, but something about having not seen him for a while made it sting more. She was funny, and a good match for Chris - quick-witted, didn’t really take his bullshit, which was a trait most of Chris’s girls lacked. He was happy for him, if this was someone he wanted to keep around. Zach just didn’t have the emotional fortitude to deal with it tonight.  
  
Which brings him here. Chris’s guest bedroom, because Chris had insisted that Zach stay with him, at least for the first couple days so he didn’t have to nurse his jetlag in an unfamiliar hotel room. Zach’s apartment wouldn’t be ready for a couple weeks, and if Chris was still the same Chris, Zach was going to be calling this guest room home for the next fourteen days. Once Chris got his hands on his friends, he didn’t really like letting them go. Which was fine with Zach, most days, but now, two hours after heading to bed and just getting to sleep, he’s woken by something toppling over and some whispered swearing.  
  
His first assumption is the dog - it’s usually the dog. But then the swearing is joined by another voice, and then they’re giggling and oh, right, the guest room is adjacent to the master and neither Chris nor his new friend are too drunk for sex, apparently.  
  
Headphones don’t help. Putting the pillow over his head doesn’t help. Karl is sleeping in the living room, so he can’t really move to the couch.  
  
And fuck if he isn’t getting hard. He swears he has more control than this, usually - he’s gone skinny dipping with the man for fuck’s sake, and was totally fine that whole time. But, god, she sounds like she’s having a great time and Zach can’t quite help but picture himself in there, under Chris’s sheets, or, or maybe they’re not even in bed, maybe he’s got her propped up on his dresser, or against the bathroom door. Whatever or wherever, her voice is drifting rhythmically through the wall and into the guest room. For a second Zach thinks he should send her chocolates tomorrow because it sounds like she’s at least _trying_ to keep her voice down, though the end result is not great.  
  
Chris is quiet, and that’s a blessing if Zach’s ever heard one.  
  
Part of the problem here is that he can’t even jerk off. It’s not his house or bed, for one thing, so that just feels wrong. There’s no convenient bathroom attached to this room like his own master for easy clean up. And aside from all that, he’s always promised himself he’d never jerk off to his friends. No matter how attractive. No matter what his dick wanted him to do. If he crossed that line he’d feel so guilty in the morning that he wouldn’t be able to look Chris in the eye (hell, he wouldn’t be able to look _anyone_ in the eye) and Chris would immediately know something was up. And if he thinks telling Chris that he’s got a big giant crush on him is bad enough, telling him that while his girlfriend is in the house might be the most mortifying thought he’s ever had.  
  
He’s been doing this for more than a decade, this crush. He does still call it a crush; to call it anything else would add weight to it that he’s pretty sure he couldn’t carry.  
  
Somehow, in the more-than-a-decade that he’s had this crush, he’s completely avoided hearing Chris Pine come. It’s way sweeter than he ever imagined it’d be; quiet, soft, muffled like he’s groaning into her shoulder. It’s the only noise he makes other than the initial whispers.  
  
Zach can only take so much. He swipes for his phone on the nightstand and tries not to look for the porn with the guy with the really blue eyes and floppy hair. He’ll just have to suck it up and use a shirt to clean up until morning.  
  
********  
  
He was right. He does feel incredibly guilty, and he does have trouble looking Chris in the eye in the morning. Even though, technically, he’d jacked off to some random porn, but he knew. He’d always know.  
  
Chris gives him a strange look over breakfast, and Karl looks between the two of them like he’s waiting for something to happen, but after that one fraught moment, life goes on as normal.  
  
Chris’s friend - friend who is a girl? Friend with benefits? Zach truly doesn’t know - leaves around noon in a pair of Chris’s yoga pants and an LA Kings t-shirt, and Chris looks absolutely besotted as he walks her to the door and follows her out, hand on her lower back. He leans against the door jamb and waves as she drives away, and he closes the gate once her car is out of view.  
  
Then he kicks the front door closed and says, “God, I thought she’d never leave.”  
  
Karl snorts. “Trouble in Paradise?”  
  
Chris rolls his eyes.  
  
Zach’s confused, because to him last night certainly _sounded_ like Paradise. “What happened last night? Was I completely oblivious to something?”  
  
Chris shakes his head, smiling, and flops onto the couch, closer to Zach than the arm at the other end, and Karl says, “Oh, you didn’t notice? Our little friend there was very clingy, and we all know how much Chris likes a clingy lady.”  
  
“That is: zero percent. Zero percent likes a clingy lady, Zach,” Chris says.  
  
“Did you not know she was clingy?” Zach asks.  
  
“Not really, no. She’s nice, really, I do like her. She’s beautiful, she’s smart. It’s just - she’s a friend of a friend who set us up like a month ago, who said, ‘oh my god, you’d love Becky, you’re perfect for each other. You should invite her to your Star Trek thing!’ and then she _texted her_ right in front of me before I could even say anything. I mean, fuck, I was still getting over-”  
  
Now, there’s a fraught silence. Karl’s eyebrows are in his hairline and Zach’s slowly turning his head toward Chris, who is still far too close on the couch.  
  
Chris is chewing his bottom lip and tapping a toenail on the hardwood floor and pretending nothing just happened and doing a very bad job of it.  
  
Karl clears his throat. Zach manages to close his mouth. He lifts a hand like he’s about to say something, then puts it back down again. Zach feels a little betrayed, actually.  
  
Karl leans forward in the recliner, elbows on his knees, and pins Chris with a very Dad look and says, “I thought you weren’t ‘doing anything serious’. As a rule.”  
  
“...I wasn’t. Technically. Officially.”  
  
“So who were you getting over?”  
  
Chris sighs. He’s red all the way down under his shirt collar, and a little shiny on his cheekbones and Zach can tell he’s really quite embarrassed about something. He chews his lip some more and fiddles with his hands a bit, picking at his thumb nail.  
  
“I’m not really supposed to say anything to anyone.”  
  
Zach and Karl look at each other and Zach says, “We’re not anyone.”  
  
Chris rolls his eyes, but he sucks in a breath through his nose, opens his mouth. Closes it again. Zach deflates back into the couch, but then Chris mutters, “I was seeing a guy,” right as the couch huffs under Zach’s weight.  
  
The room is suddenly far too hot, and Zach’s clothes are sticking to him in all the wrong places, and Karl’s grinning like a shark. Zach’s hands might actually be shaking. Chris and Karl are having a staring contest while Zach has his own staring contest with the side of Chris’s head, specifically his ear and the grey hair right above it. His ears are ringing. He snaps back into the real world when Chris says, “I know, okay? It’s not like I could broadcast it, you know that.”  
  
Karl says, “No, I know. But you couldn’t have told _us_ ?” and he says it so gently that Zach’s heart breaks a little - no one spoke to him like that when he came out.  
  
Chris sighs again and rolls his shoulders, one after the other, leaning back into the couch cushions like they might help him out and swallow him whole. “I guess I didn’t want to say unless I knew it would work out? I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything, man. You’d have figured it out eventually.”  
  
Zach still hasn’t said anything and, wow, some friend he’s being. He reaches out and rests a palm on Chris’s knee, pats it a couple times; he can feel the heat of Chris through his pants. Chris rolls his head on the back of the couch to look at him and he looks tired. Zach wonders if he’s looked tired for a long time and he just hadn’t noticed.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Zach says.  
  
Chris huffs and says, “Why?”  
  
“For not knowing,” and that’s not nearly all of it, but it’ll have to do for now.  
  
“Well, I was specifically trying not to let anyone know, so. Y’know.” He’s smiling, one corner of his mouth pulled higher than the other, and it’s real, Zach can tell. It reaches his eyes, it’s playful. It’s not a mask, so maybe it’s all going to be fine.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it now?” Zach says. “Couldn’t have been easy to go through that alone.”  
  
Karl hmms and says, “Yes, please, give us all the dirty details.” They’re like the angel and devil on Chris’s shoulders, and it’s probably for the best. Zach’s feeling a bit too open, raw, right now to give Chris the comic relief that he usually needs, that Zach can usually provide in spades.  
  
Chris looks back and forth between them, Zach still touching his leg, Karl still looking at him from across the coffee table, and that smile turns a little more sinister before he says, “He was stupid hot.”  
  
Karl “ooooo”s low in his chest and rubs his palms together. So Karl has won this particular conversation. Dirty details it is.  
  
“Taller than me, which was a nice change. I’ve never had to lean up to kiss anyone before.”  
  
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, continue.”  
  
Zach snorts and crosses his arms across his chest.  
  
“He was sort of the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Had a beard - I could never grow a beard as nice as his. Strange feeling, being jealous of something a partner has.” ‘Partner’, god, Zach’s going to die. It’s not even new for Chris to leave pronouns out of the conversation, but now it means something. “Kind of looked like you, actually,” Chris says, lewd, voice lowered deep into something Zach doesn’t get to hear very often.  
  
He’s looking at Karl, leering, and Karl’s got his head tipped back in a laugh as he says, “I knew it! I knew you had a giant dirty crush on me, I could tell the minute we met.”  
  
“Accents, man, can’t control myself.”  
  
Karl snaps his fingers, gasps, and says, “Is that why in Australia-?”  
  
“Well...”  
  
Zach has never needed to know what followed a ‘well’ so much in his life. He can feel how wide his own eyes are, burning holes in the side of Chris’s head.  
  
“Oh my god. Christopher. Please,” Karl says for him.  
  
“Well, that night _was_ the first time I ever sucked a dick.”  
  
If Zach had had anything in his mouth it would have very quickly not been in his mouth anymore. As it is, his own saliva makes for a great choking hazard, and he realises belatedly that he’s gripping Chris’s knee like a vice. Chris, who’s cackling and gripping Zach’s knee right back, is saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It had to be done. You’ve been so serious.”  
  
Zach’ll never admit it, but he’s definitely shouting a bit when he asks, “You’ve been sucking dicks for _five years_ and didn’t tell any of us?”  
  
“Sucking dick, yeah, but handjobs happened long before,” he says with a hand-wave, and now he’s just being mean. Zach can feel his own flush, can see Chris’s and they must really look like a good pair.  
  
There are a lot of other things Zach wants to know. So many things he can think to ask, but they’re all so, _so_ inappropriate.  
  
Fuck, Zach can remember Australia. He remembers that night when Chris ducked out early, and they had all assumed he’d found some girl at the bar. It also just wasn’t out of the ordinary for Chris to be the first to head back to his room; all the social interaction usually wiped him out and he’d be falling asleep on his feet by midnight. That was pretty much the only night Chris was out of Zach’s sight.  
  
Chris had commented a handful of times about the accents, had flirted with a few servers and bartenders, both women and men, complimented their accents in a very clear come-on. Chris is flirty by nature, they all know this, so no one had batted an eye. The women he wanted to take home, the men were just for fun. As far as Zach had known, anyway.  
  
He can’t blame the guy, whoever it was. Chris looked magnificent that night - the whole day, really, showing up at the photocall in a maroon suit and all Zach could focus on was how narrow his hips looked in those pants. For the premiere he’d changed into blue which frankly wasn’t fair to anyone in a five mile radius, and he was so tan, and, well. Zach can’t blame the guy, is all.  
  
Zach comes back to the conversation, which has turned a bit more subdued, and Chris is spinning his ring around his pinky, tapping his toes on the floor again - fidgeting.  
  
Zach gently changes the subject, and thankfully Karl seems to be on his side for once, as they steer the conversation into safer territory. They decide to go out for lunch, and Zach complains the whole time that he hasn’t been in a swimming pool in months, so they opt to spend the rest of the day in Chris’s backyard. It tickles the back of his mind the whole day, but he forces himself to ignore it.  
  
It’s early when they start to wind down, and Zach thinks about how different tonight is to the night before. They’re sprawled in the living room, quiet, not really paying attention to whatever’s on the TV. Zach’s the first up, pulling his body from the couch and patting Chris on the shoulder on his way past, a mumbled, “‘Night,” the only thing he says. The others aren’t far behind him, and when he gets out of the bathroom Karl is there waiting and Chris is shuffling around in his room with the door closed.  
  
Lying in bed, he lets himself think that it hurts more, now that he knows it’s a possibility. Before, when Chris was straight - when he thought that Chris was straight - it was easy to brush off. They could flirt and they could touch and they could fall into the same bed and go to sleep and it was fine. Sometimes his chest constricted a little too much, and he’d put some distance between them for a few days, a week, but he could always control it. It never got in the way. Chris never seemed to notice, giving as good as he got, and it felt safe. Zach could slap his ass and no one would say anything, and Chris could wipe cake off Zach’s face and they’d be completely ignored.  
  
But Chris hasn’t been straight. He’s been out there with men, other men, who are not Zach. If it was just sex, if he was hooking up with guys and girls and not keeping any of them, even that Zach could handle.  
  
Zach’s afraid he can’t handle the fact that Chris chose some guy over him. That apparently Zach wasn’t even an option.  
  
Of course, if Zach had known, would he have done anything about it? Would anything have changed? They’ve been working under the assumption that they’re best friends for more than a decade, would either of them want to ruin that? Want to risk it?  
  
For one blinding moment, Zach wishes that girl were here - listening to them fuck in the other room was far less torturous than this.  
  
********  
  
Zach has never been good at reading himself. He tries. He meditates and goes to therapy and he tries to focus on his feelings, but he’s often surprised when someone calls him out on something he hadn’t even noticed.  
  
Three days after Chris’s “announcement”, he corners Zach in a dressing room while Zach is about to try on some jeans that he thinks will probably make his ass look great.  
  
“Jesus, Chris, you almost got my finger in the door. What the hell?”  
  
“What’s your problem?”  
  
That’s not _exactly_ what Zach thought he was going to say.  
  
“I’m sorry?”  
  
“You’ve been avoiding me for days. And you’re currently living in my house, so that’s a special kind of feat,” Chris says. He runs a hand through his hair and scratches at the back of his head, then says, “I thought you’d understand, out of everyone.”  
  
Zach’s heart sinks. He can’t pretend not to know what Chris is talking about. He drops the jeans and pulls Chris into a hug, only feeling a little hurt when Chris doesn’t hug him back right away.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I do understand, I promise.” He leans back and holds Chris at arms length, squeezing his shoulders. “I guess I didn’t realise how surprised I was.”  
  
Chris isn’t looking at him, but Zach is watching him carefully. He sees the muscles of his face relax before Chris lets out a long breath.  
  
“That’s fair,” Chris says.  
  
“Doesn’t mean I should be avoiding my best friend, though.”  
  
Chris grins at him, and the relief in Zach must show on his face because Chris pulls him back into a hug.  
  
Zach swallows, tongue feeling too big for his mouth, before saying, “I love you. You know that, right?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, love you, too. Now hurry up, I’m hungry and the food court is calling.” He’s out the door before Zach has the chance to mock him. If this was Before, Chris would have winked at him and said something like, ‘Oh, and I bet those jeans will make your ass look great.’ He doesn’t know what to do with a Chris who won’t say things like that anymore.  
  
When he steps out of the dressing room a few minutes later, Chris is holding a bag from the store, a smug smile threatening to take over his whole face. He hands the bag to Zach. “Those will make your ass look great,” he says, walking away. Zach looks in the bag, then to the identical pair in his other hand. He throws them back into the dressing room.  
  
********  
  
They spend the next couple days doing a whole bunch of nothing at all. Zach doesn’t usually like being idle for this long, but Chris has always amazed him in his ability to veg out completely for days on end. He’ll bounce from reading a book to researching some mundane topic like trees - just trees, not a specific type, or anything specific about them at all, just… trees - to working out to watching a movie. Zach needs to leave the house every once in a while, see some other faces and interact with other people, but Chris has always seemed quite content to sit in the quiet for hours and see only Zach’s face for an indeterminate amount of time.  
  
So Zach’s itching a bit to get out. He’ll go get coffee for the three of them or go for a run, some way to interact with the outside world. The coffee shop is only five minutes away, but he winds himself around the neighbourhood enough that it usually takes him 45 minutes to get there. He comes back today with three coffees but there’s just Chris sitting at his kitchen table with a textbook - an actual textbook, where does he get this stuff? - open next to his laptop.  
  
“What, and I mean this sincerely, the fuck are you doing?” Zach asks.  
  
Chris looks up at him, confused smile tugging at his mouth. His hair is just this side of too long and Zach would absolutely love to run his fingers through it to get it out of his eyes, so he stands far enough away to keep the temptation at bay and holds tight to the tray of coffee cups.  
  
“I’m comparing this history textbook to what I can find on the internet. I read an article the other day, it was about, something like how kids in high school get so little information, and the information they do get is usually wrong or so diluted that it’s basically worthless.”  
  
“O...kay. And you thought ‘let’s go buy an inordinately expensive textbook just to satiate my need to know everything all the time whether or not it’s relevant to anything I’ll ever do’?”  
  
“Shut up, Zach,” Chris says and turns back to his book with an exaggeratedly haughty sigh. “Oh yeah, Karl is gone, his apartment was ready, so you better be planning on giving me that extra coffee.”  
  
“Of course, your majesty. I’m honored you would deem it acceptable, your highness. Is there anything further you require of me, Princess?”  
  
“Shut up, Zach,” he repeats, but at least this time he’s making grabby hands towards the coffee and looking at Zach with half-lidded, tired eyes and a soft smile.  
  
Zach eats and cleans up and Chris still hasn’t moved even though it’s nearly time for lunch, so Zach sits next to him and scrolls through his phone. He keeps reading the same tweet over and over again, not able to concentrate on anything but the comfortable silence they’ve cultivated here; how domestic this all seems.  
  
There’s a part of him that wants to ask. A small, masochistic part of him wants to know why he’s not enough for Chris, why Chris apparently doesn’t see him as a romantic or sexual being, why he looks at Zach and sees only ‘friend’, when Zach looks at Chris and can see an entire future.  
  
Some bravery takes over his brain and he clears his throat, puts his phone face down on the table, and waits for Chris to look up. When he does, it’s with raised eyebrows and parted lips.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me, Chris?” His heart is hammering in his chest and he feels prickly, and he thought this type of shit would go away once he hit 40.  
  
Chris’s mouth closes just long enough for him to lick his lips, biding his time, then he says, “I was scared,” in a rush and a whisper.  
  
“Of me?”  
  
Chris makes a noise in the back of his throat to the negative, shakes his head. “No. Or yeah, maybe. I needed to figure myself out on my own, and I was afraid that you - or anyone - would, I don’t know, try to convince me I was something I’m not. Or. Well, yeah, that and I was afraid in the beginning that people would think it was a publicity thing, and then it seemed disingenuous to come out when I had still barely even had my hands on any men, and then it went on so long that I was comfortable in my little bubble.”  
  
Thinking about Chris, going through this, this huge realization, by himself and then sitting there believing that Zach would try to dissuade him or not believe him has Zach’s palms clammy and his throat dry. He gets it. He was afraid to tell his best friend in high school even though he knew it would be fine, but this feels different, and Zach is smart enough to know it’s because he loves Chris, knows this hurts so much because Zach cares so deeply.  
  
“I would never have done that.”  
  
“I know. I do, I know, it’s just. I just had a hard time convincing myself of that most days.”  
  
Zach stays silent for a while, let’s Chris go back to his book. He taps his nails on the table, realises he’s doing it and stops, and then starts doing it again unconsciously.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Zach says.  
  
“The amount of things you’ve asked me that I haven’t flinched at should tell you that yes, yes you can ask me something.”  
  
Zach laughs and says, “I know, and this isn’t something I’d ever hesitate to ask in the past, but...”  
  
“Go ahead, ask away. I’m an open book,” and then he snorts and taps his open textbook with his fingers and waggles his eyebrows. Zach’s in love with an absolute dork.  
  
“What was it about dudes that made you think, ‘yeah I’d like to give that a try’ in your 30’s?”  
  
It startles a laugh from Chris. “You digging for compliments?”  
  
The fact that that even crossed Chris’s mind makes the room feel hotter. Zach swallows and says, “Not unless you’re going to willingly give them, no. Now come on, spill.”  
  
Chris sighs, says, “I don’t know. I’d always looked at guys. It’s been there forever, and you’d think with my family being the way they are, and how I grew up that I’d have realised it sooner, but here we are. I just assumed I was straight. I liked women, that’s all there is to it, right? I defaulted.”  
  
“So there wasn’t a specific moment?” Zach can remember a very specific moment as a teenager that caused so much guilt he felt sick for a week.  
  
“There were many specific moments, I think. Especially in retrospect. That guy in college I was really good friends with, and when he was around I suddenly couldn’t keep my hands to myself? Yeah, super in love with him, apparently.”  
  
“Wait, you mean Tom? The guy you still talk about all the time? Isn’t he super gay?” Super gay and, if Zach remembers correctly, also tall, dark, and handsome. Perhaps Chris has a type.  
  
“Feels like a lost opportunity, now, yeah.” Well, now they’re back to melancholy.  
  
“Alright, so… I’m going to ask something else, and this is just for my own perverted curiosity.” That gets a salacious grin out of Chris anyway, so he goes on, “What was your first time like?”  
  
“Oh, god,” he groans. “It was horrible, Zach, truly. I thought my first time with a girl was awkward, but this was just - next level uncomfortable.”  
  
Zach winces and sucks a breath through his teeth. “That’s unfortunate.”  
  
“Mhmm. But as bad as it was, I did like it. An awkward experience with a woman didn’t turn me off women forever, and an awkward experience with a man didn’t turn me off men forever. It was better, in a way. I was old enough to take it as a learning experience instead of feeling personally at fault and apologizing for it.”  
  
Zach has watched this man for years, and while he’s always been attracted to Chris’s intelligence and openness, he’ll never tire of being reminded how easily Chris can take a bad experience and turn it into something worth remembering, something good and pure. He shines light on dark places and makes it easier to see, easier to wade through and make it out the other side unscathed.  
  
He realises he’s been just nodding along when Chris adds, “Also, whatever they put in this drink for Karl must be related to crack in some way, jesus. I could go for, like, seven more of these right now.” He rolls his tongue around the straw to pull it into his mouth and sucks hard to get the last of the drink from the bottom of the cup, and, really, seriously, someone needs to stop him. Zach can’t be that person, because he gets too much painful gratification from it and it’s like an addiction, but someone. Someone, somewhere must know how to stop him.  
  
Zach clears his throat and says, “That’s just what I need: an over-caffeinated Christopher Pine. I can barely handle an un-caffeinated one.”  
  
It could just be the subject matter of their conversation that’s got Zach on edge, or it could be that Chris can make anything sound sultry when he wants to, but when he stands and replies, “Oh, you could handle me,” Zach swears the whole room freezes. He finishes his coffee in one go and when he’s done, Chris is gone and he can hear the TV in the living room starting up.  
  
********  
  
That one little comment is the one that finally, officially breaks him. The years of knee-touching, sleeping in the same bed, skinny dipping; the countless interviews in which they toy with the interviewers, play up the bromance; the endless flirting, oh god, so much flirting. None of that, in hindsight, compares to the absolute panic Zach is feeling over one tiny little comment.  
  
It felt different. They were alone, they were both feeling vulnerable, and Chris muttered it like he was willing Zach not to hear it, but knowing he would. And he said it anyway. Like he couldn’t help it.  
  
Like it was something he’d thought about. It plants the seed of doubt in Zach’s brain.  
  
So now jerking off in his friend’s guest room is becoming a _habit_ that he would really rather stop but at the moment all he can really focus on is the memory of the little twitch of Chris’s mouth when he said that, and how fucking bright his eyes were all day.  
  
God dammit.  
  
********  
  
He spends the whole next day thinking about it too, just zoning out time and time again in the middle of a sentence or watching the news or with a fork halfway to his mouth. Chris either doesn’t notice or just assumes Zach’s having a bad day, because he doesn’t say anything or even look at him funny, but Zach knows it has to be so obvious that something weird is going on inside his head.  
  
He gets a call from the property manager saying the apartment might be ready a few days early, so he probably only has a couple more days left here, and something about that tugs at Zach’s chest in an ugly way, pulling anxiety up from his gut. He should be happy about that, and he should be happy to let Chris, to let his _best friend_ , get some respite before rehearsals start. He knows how Chris gets, he knows Chris likes to be alone, especially right before filming. He uses a lot of energy, hard and fast, for months at a time and it drains him, and Zach’s always been proud that he could be relied on to notice that, to notice when Chris needed that time alone and to step back. Stop with the texts, stop with the uninvited visits, and just let him have his time.  
  
Zach’s actually still not sure what Chris _does_ during those few weeks before filming. It could be more of the same, but it’s entirely possible that Chris has some super special rituals - meditation in the garden to whalesong, making salt amulets at 3am to ward off witches, living in the woods of the hills for five days. Zach’s not sure, and while curiosity is to be expected, he _should_ feel bad for encroaching on Chris’s time.  
  
He just doesn’t. There’s the anxiety about leaving, but there’s also a very pointed, very shiny, warm beam somewhere, lighting up some pleasure part of his brain that tells him to stick around and see what happens.  
  
There’s a strong tension for the rest of the day and into the evening that he’s not sure is real or perceived by just himself. He works that tension out by cooking. Chris goes for a late run just after the sun sets and it takes all of two seconds of being alone in Chris’s house for the feeling to get to him and for him to decide he needs to make himself useful, put his hands to work, make sure he doesn’t touch stuff he’s not supposed to. Maybe he does it to surprise Chris but no one else needs to know that, and he never has to admit it.  
  
The house smells pretty garlicky and tomato-y when Chris gets back, and Zach’s opened the windows to air the place out a bit. Chris walks through the foyer to the kitchen saying, “God, I could smell that outside, what magic is this?”  
  
Zach feels him before he turns to look at him, feels the heat radiating off him in waves onto Zach’s back and arm. When he does turn around Chris has his t-shirt thrown over his shoulder and his hair is standing up from running his hand through it and his cheeks and chest are pink and actually, like, glistening. What the hell is Zach supposed to do with that? He’s standing way too close and Zach feels like he just ran for 90 minutes himself with the way his heart speeds up.  
  
He manages to get his eyes to wander back up to Chris’s face just in time to see Chris look a little confused, but it’s fleeting and then he’s back to hungry post-run Chris, stepping back and rubbing his belly, grumbling about having to take a shower before eating and how he might pass out from hunger while he’s in there. “Just come check on me if you hear any weird banging noises or if I’m longer than five minutes.”  
  
Zach sets the table like the good ‘50s housewife he is, puts some music on the sound system, and very specifically does not think about Chris making noises in the shower, or why he might actually be in there longer than strictly necessary that doesn’t involve low blood sugar.  
  
The worst part is that once he’s back in the kitchen, wearing sweatpants and a shirt that’s two sizes too big, he looks even better. And the clean scent that follows him out activates some monkey part of Zach’s brain that overwhelms him with a feeling of protectiveness and possession and _domestication_ , and he’s never felt _that_ for Chris before.  
  
Probably because of all the denial.  
  
So they eat and they talk and Zach swallows more than is necessary for the amount of mouthfuls of food he eats. Chris had opened a bottle of wine (“It’s special, I think, but fuck if I can remember why,”) and when he gets up and takes their plates, he mumbles something about, “some cheesecake or something, might still be in the freezer,” and then he comes back with cheesecake and this is a date.  
  
This is a date.  
  
They’re on a date.  
  
A giggle bubbles up in Zach against his will and all he can do is shove a fork-full of cheesecake in his mouth and shake his head when Chris asks him what his problem is.  
  
Then Chris asks if he wants to watch a movie, and Zach deflects by saying, “Anything other than a romcom,” and Chris looks at him weird again, and those looks have increased exponentially since he got back from his run.  
  
“When have I ever put a romcom on with you here?”  
  
The obvious answer to that would be to say something like, “Ah, so that means you do put on romcoms when I’m not here,” but what comes out is, “I don’t know, I mean, you could have romcoms over there in your little DVD stand. Who has DVDs anymore anyway?”  
  
“Fuck you Zach, you have a shelf of VHS tapes. You have no room to talk here. This is my house.”  
  
That’s how they end up watching Ed Wood. He feels a little exposed watching a movie about the film industry - wasn’t every single Best Picture nominee in the last 5 years a movie about the film industry? It’s just like them, narcissistic and egotistical. He reminds himself of all the times Chris has completely unselfconsciously eaten food off the floor of a packed theatre, or sung showtunes off-key, half-asleep at a quiet bar, or fallen over absolutely nothing, on a completely clear straight-away, just his own feet tripping him up. It’s all of the reasons he likes Chris, his lack of ego when it’s important, and how he’s never in it just for himself.  
  
All the reasons he _likes_ Chris are also all the reasons he loves Chris.  
  
He sighs, catching the attention of said Chris who pokes at him with a de-socked toe and looks at him with a questioning eyebrow, and Zach wants to bare all, he really does. He can’t, but he wants to so badly it hurts. Has hurt for far too long, actually. He’s bursting at the seams.  
  
Chris clearly does a mental shrug (Zach can tell - he’s seen it so many times, in so many interviews) and turns back to the TV, but Zach doesn’t stop looking at him. He traces Chris’s profile, looks at the details of his messed up hair (compares the colour to the first time they met and everything in between - blond, to brown, to blond twice more, now grey - it feels like so much time has passed), watches his fingers tap quietly on the arm of the couch. He can’t really sit still. For all that he’s quiet and introverted, he’s also unable to think if he’s not moving; tapping or picking or humming - fidgeting.  
  
Zach doesn’t know when he learned all of this. There are no particular memories of any of the things about Chris that he knows, he’s just always known them, like he’s always known he loves him. Like he’s always known that he wants to spend the rest of his life with him, in whatever way he can. If that means he has to do that by sitting on the other end of the couch from him, if he has to do it from a distance, then so be it.  
  
********  
  
Nighttime changes things. The quiet of a house that’s been shut down for the night allows your brain to spiral, nothing to distract from the dark little thoughts that you’re able to keep at bay during the day. Zach finds a podcast and plugs in his headphones, but even that’s not quite enough at 12:30am.  
  
What if sitting on the other end of the couch isn’t enough? Can he possibly get through the rest of his life like that? Both of them in their own relationships, only seeing each other when it’s convenient, months of dead air in between. He knows he wouldn’t be happy, not even content, but Chris doesn’t appear to be bothered; he seems happy for the space between them, for the friendship. Zach tries to picture himself with a husband and dog, bringing them over to Chris’s house for dinner, Chris who’s there with his boyfriend or wife or someone, and Zach can’t imagine he’d be able to smile the entire time he was there.  
  
He’s never been a particularly anxious person, but he hesitates. If Chris wanted him, he’d have made a move ages ago, right? What kind of friend would Zach be if he ambushed him days after coming out? A shitty one, definitely.  
  
His hesitance lasts another five minutes, in which he considers the options. Option one: they’re the love of each other’s lives and spend the rest of their lives together in married bliss. Option two: Chris punches him in the face and they never talk again. He’s reminded again of all the times he’s had to talk himself down, tell himself Chris is straight, tell himself he wouldn’t be interested anyway, tell himself what he’s feeling really isn’t that important. It’s because the likelihood of disaster is so great. No matter what the potential reward could be, the possibility of ending their entire relationship has won out every single time.  
  
Now it’s different. And he can’t lie to himself about it anymore - he loves Chris. It was always inevitable. There was no way to get around it or to get away from it. It had happened so slowly that he’d never had a chance. The scales have tipped, now.  
  
So that settles it, then. He gets out of bed.  
  
********  
  
The door isn’t completely latched and it creaks a little when he taps it with his knuckles. Inside, there’s only darkness, as far as Zach can tell through the millimetres of space between the door and the frame. He knows, logically, that Chris won’t be upset at being woken up, but he holds his breath anyway.  
  
Chris shuffles around, sheets swooshing as he wakes. He clears his throat but doesn’t say anything, and Zach hears a phone tap back onto the nightstand. Zach knocks again, a little louder, a little more obviously a knock rather than, like, ghosts.  
  
“Uh… Zach?” A slightly scared Chris shouldn’t be cute, and yet.  
  
Zach cracks the door a little, still not enough to really see inside, couldn’t see anything in the dark anyway, and says, “Yeah. Sorry. Can I come in?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Is that an answer or a question?” Zach asks as he pushes the door further open. He feels a rush of cold as the AC hits him and remembers how unbearably cold Chris likes his room to be to sleep. Just so he can pile more blankets on, he says. Zach crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the door frame just inside the room, cocks his hip into the dresser for balance.  
  
Chris sighs, not angrily, just sleepily, and clicks on the lamp on the nightstand and for someone who’s only been asleep for all of twenty minutes he looks like he hasn’t been out of bed for twelve hours.  
  
The last tiny piece of Zach’s willpower wilts and floats away. He’s pretty sure he can see it.  
  
Chris is just squinting at him in the new light with his face all scrunched up and he’s only barely sitting. Zach’s not sure if it could be considered sitting - he got up alright, but once his torso was vertical he crumpled forward, his arms between his legs and his back curved in an uncomfortable-looking arc.  
  
“You gonna tell me why you woke me up at-” he taps his phone, “-12:52, or are you just gonna stand there all night?” Zach tries to answer but Chris cuts him off, “Because if you’re just going to stand there all night, I’m going back to sleep. Enjoy.” And he flops back down onto his back and closes his eyes, like the asshole he’s always been.  
  
“Christopher.”  
  
“Zachary John.”  
  
Zach huffs and runs a hand through his hair. Chris has opened his eyes but is still staring straight up and it might be easier if Chris isn’t looking at him, really, so he steels himself and starts talking.  
  
“Sorry for waking you. I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to ask you something. Or. Needed to ask you something if I ever want to sleep ever again, I guess.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“And I want to preface this by saying that I don’t want anything to change. And you’re not obligated to even reply-”  
  
“Have I ever felt obligated to reply to your bullshit?” Chris says. He’s smirking and still looking at the ceiling and Zach’s breath catches at the sight of him when he finally makes eye contact.  
  
“Clearly not,” Zach says.  
  
“I can’t see shit, would you just come in?”  
  
Zach can clearly see his glasses sitting next to his phone, an arms length away and easily accessible, but he slips into the room anyway, toes the door closed again, has a minor panic attack about why he would do that because now he’s trapped. He sits at the foot of the bed, on the corner. He’s perched so precariously that Chris could probably wiggle a toe and Zach would fall off.  
  
Chris struggles to get up again around all his blankets and Zach smiles, can tell it’s a touch too fond but can’t bring himself to stop. Chris is leaning back on his elbows, stretched out head to foot and his bed is huge, too big for one person, right? There needs to be another 6 foot tall resident, right?  
  
“So, what kinda question is this, anyway? That’ll keep you up for the rest of your life?”  
  
Zach clears his throat and looks around the room, then back at Chris’s face, his eyes - the face he’s known for years, the face he wants to see every morning when he wakes up.  
  
“I want to know something,” Zach says. “It’s a bit narcissistic.”  
  
Chris nods at him to continue.  
  
“Why? Uh, why didn’t you ever want me?”  
  
He could hear a pin drop. Fuck, he could hear a cotton ball drop from four rooms over, it’s so quiet.  
  
Chris mouths _why_ with his eyebrows knit together and if Zach wasn’t frozen he’d think it was hilarious. Chris always looks hilarious when he’s confused. Really dumb, like a puppy who can’t figure out which cup the treat is hidden under. He can’t appreciate it right now, but later he’ll laugh at it, he’s sure.  
  
He doesn’t answer and Zach’s kind of on a roll at this point - it’s out there now, so why stop? - so he says, “I mean, we get along great, right? We’re good together. Are we not?”  
  
Chris looks like a deer in the headlights when he nods and he shuffles around, pulls his legs up and crosses them, folds his hands together in his lap. “We are.”  
  
“Okay,” Zach says. Maybe he’s run out of steam earlier than he’d anticipated.  
  
“Zach?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I did.” Zach’s eyes dart back to Chris, who’s picking at his thumbnail again. “I do.” It’s so whisper soft Zach’s afraid he misheard, but the colour in Chris’s face assures him he didn’t. “How could you have expected me to say anything? Or, what, make a move or something? You know me, I never initiate anything.”  
  
“That’s not true,” Zach says - automatic, from the part of his brain that contradicts Chris whenever he says something even mildly negative about himself - even though it’s the least important part of anything that just came out of Chris’s mouth. It’s only the entire crux of why he’d held back to begin with, his assumption that Chris would make the first move. His assumption that his love for Chris was so glaring it could be seen from space.  
  
“God, Zach, I love you. _So much_ . You have to know that.” He says it like it’s the most evident fact in the universe. “Frankly, that you ever doubted that is kind of offensive.”  
  
“Well yeah, and I love you, but you’ve been saying that for years.”  
  
“Yeah. Exactly.”  
  
This may not be the declaration of love that he thinks it is, but before he leaves this room he’s going to know for sure. He has to.  
  
“If there was ever a time for you to start talking and not stop it would be now, Chris.”  
  
Chris huffs, fake indignant, but he grins and ducks his head and says, “I’m going to remind you of this every time you tell me to shut up.”  
  
“I’m counting on it. Now spill.”  
  
“Now? We’re doing this right now? What do you want me to say? I lived thirty-something fucking years as a straight guy and then all of a sudden I’m realising things about myself that I’d never even considered before. I was scared, Zach. I didn’t know what any of it meant or how I was supposed to act or what I was supposed to do. I’ve loved you since the day we met, but it wasn’t until the first time I said, ‘Huh, maybe I’m bisexual,’ that I even realised what that might mean.” He takes a deep breath and rubs at his eyes, lets out a sigh. “I had no idea you might consider me an option. I’m not exactly your type, you know? I’ve spent like fifteen years watching you date younger, cute, talented hipsters.”  
  
Zach opens his mouth to argue - how is Chris not all of those things, plus a thousand others? - but Chris barrels through, “And that’s not the point anyway. Even aside from all of that, even if I thought you were madly in love with me, I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t want to lose you if everything went sideways, I didn’t want you to think I was just experimenting and hate me, I didn’t- I just… wasn’t ready.” He deflates after that, and stares at his knees under the covers. Then he mutters, “That was the worst romcom line of all time.”  
  
Zach says, “Says the guy who claims not to watch romcoms.”  
  
Chris gives him the finger.  
  
Zach laughs and crawls up the bed to lean back against the headboard. Hesitating just for a second, he reaches out and touches Chris’s lower back with his finger tips, rubbing lightly, bunching up his t-shirt. Chris doesn’t startle; he leans back into it and Zach feels a load of tension leave his body, so he flattens his palm and runs it up his spine as far as he can reach and then back down. He says, quietly, “For the sake of honesty, full disclosure, whatever you want to call it - I am madly in love with you. Have been. It’s like, a problem, actually. In my life.”  
  
Zach can feel Chris's snort under his hand, which is a great new experience, and he turns red all along the back of his neck and shoulders.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. I don’t know what you’re talking about with this ‘not my type’ bull, either. Maybe none of those other guys were anything like you, but that’s only because no one comes anywhere close to matching you. They were watered down versions of different parts of you, at best.” He can see Chris’s grin even from back here, cheeks rounded and crinkled around his eyes when he turns minutely toward Zach.  
  
Zach presses his palm more firmly, and he feels Chris sigh. He’s trying really hard not to be a presumptuous asshole right now, but when he runs his hand back up he does it skin to skin, rucks Chris’s shirt up a couple inches, feeling the hard muscle on either side of his spine and the cool skin of his lower back, dips the pad of his thumb into a dimple.  
  
“Your hands are warm,” Chris says. It sounds like he barely parts his lips around the words.  
  
“Yeah, well, that’s no thanks to your frigid room. How do you sleep in this?”  
  
Chris pats his nest of blankets with both hands in answer, and then turns his head back to stare hard at Zach. He’s never looked at Zach like that before, he’s pretty sure. Like he’s prey. Chris lifts the sheets as much as he can with Zach sitting on top of them and says, “Maybe you should get in. It’s nice and warm in here.”  
  
Two seconds is all it takes to get underneath those covers. Zach’s never moved so fast in his life, and it makes Chris laugh, though it wasn’t meant to be funny. Still, making Chris laugh has always been at least a top 3 priority in his life and he’s pretty sure it just permanently moved to number 1.  
  
When he touches Chris’s back again, he’s definitely moved closer. He feels goosebumps on Chris’s back and can see the hair on his arms standing up, so he continues doing what he’s doing, doesn’t dare break the spell of the room.  
  
Chris’s breathing starts to even out, his head hanging forward, his arms limp, and Zach still doesn’t stop. He’d be perfectly content to just sleep here tonight, wrapped around each other.  
  
So he doesn’t stop. He flicks off the lamp and rubs circles and diamonds and hearts into Chris’s back, scratches with his fingernails, presses with his thumbs, until he’s falling asleep, too. This position is going to be hell on Chris if he’s there much longer, so the second time Zach jolts awake he pulls Chris down by the arm and spoons up behind him.  
  
Chris makes all his “I’m going to sleep” noises, and curls up into a ball, sighing into the pillow. Then he stops. Then he turns around and gently touches Zach’s side with just his fingertips. Even in the low light Zach can tell Chris’s eyes are wide and staring straight through him. They’re nearly nose to nose, and he feels more than sees Chris tilt in closer, and then he feels more than hears Chris whisper, “Can I?”

Zach makes an absolutely pathetic noise in the back of his throat, cups the back of Chris's neck, and pulls him the rest of the way.

They'd kissed before, actually, drunk and on a dare - they had turned down the twenty bucks each - in a dark corner of a bar with half the Trek cast watching. It was sloppy and they were giggling and there was no tongue. They both tasted strongly of beer and they kept their hands to themselves. It still stuck out in Zach's mind as one of the better kisses of his life, though he refused to dwell on the potential reasons why.

Now, Chris's fingers clench in Zach's shirt and Zach scrapes his own fingers through the hair on the nape of Chris’s neck. It's lazy and sleepy, but Chris's tongue is insistent.

Chris pulls away, only far enough to drag his lips to the corner of Zach's mouth and to his jaw. He's pushed his fingers under Zach's shirt and he pulls him in, insinuates a knee between Zach's legs and rolls so he's half on top of him. 

Zach can feel that Chris is hard, but he's still, aside from his hand kneading into Zach's hip and his tongue twisting against Zach's in his mouth. Zach taps his hip to get Chris to stop, make sure he’s looking at him when he says, “What do you want? Right now?” He palms Chris’s cheek, swipes his thumb under his eye. He feels like he’s walking on eggshells, and he feels so completely out of his element here which is hysterical if he thinks too hard about it, but he needs this to be okay. He needs them to be okay.  
  
Chris’s mouth pulls up on one side. “That’s sweet,” he murmurs, “protecting my virtue,” and then he slides the rest of the way on top of Zach and rolls his hips into Zach’s crotch and alright. He can definitely work with that.  
  
Zach makes quick work of Chris’s shirt, throws it somewhere towards the wall, then Zach gets stuck in his own shirt for a second until Chris pulls it the rest of the way off his head. There’s not much fabric between them, and Chris keeps grinding down into Zach’s hips, but it’s when Chris runs his hands down Zach’s torso that makes him lose it. Chris’s eyes rake over his body and his hands are soft and firm and reverent; fitting his fingers between Zach’s ribs, scraping his nails through the hair on his chest. Zach’s never felt more loved or turned on in his life.  
  
Zach bucks his hips, lifts his brows and says, “What kind of supplies do you have here, anyway?”  
  
Chris jumps off of him and heads for the bathroom. Zach calls out, “You don’t keep it in your bedside drawer like a normal person?” as he pulls his shorts down and kicks them off the bed.  
  
He gets a, “Shut it, Zach,” then some rustling and a couple drawers opening, and then, “It’s not like I’ve had a line of men coming in and out of here.” Zach takes a moment to picture that, makes himself jealous, and then steadfastly does not think about any other men Chris may have had in his bed.  
  
When Chris steps back through the doorway, he’s fully naked and throws his handful of stuff at Zach. Zach, for his part, doesn’t notice any flying objects as he gets on his knees to meet Chris at the side of the bed. Zach pulls him in by the hips and kisses down his neck, resting his forehead on Chris’s collarbone and breathing in the scent of him. It’s Chris alright, there’s no mistaking it, and he needs to taste.  
  
He shuffles down and lays on his belly, holding himself up by the elbows. He says, “Just seeing your dick is making my mouth water.”  
  
“Jesus Christ, Zach.” Chris tangles his fingers in Zach’s hair and tugs his head back, makes him look up. Chris licks his lip and then sucks it into his mouth, and Zach reaches for him, wraps a hand around him and strokes up, once, just to watch Chris’s eyes flutter closed.  
  
Chris lets him go, mostly, keeps his hand lightly resting on Zach’s head. With the other he grips Zach’s shoulder. When Zach takes him into his mouth the fingers on his shoulder clench hard enough to bruise, and Zach’s own cock twitches with the visual, both of them marked up in the morning, no other explanation for it than sex.  
  
Chris’s hips jerk forward and then he’s pulling Zach back and maneuvering him around onto his back. Zach’s not quite used to being manhandled, he’s usually the one doing the handling, but he’s harder than he can ever remember being so it must be doing something for him. He’s being pulled by the hips toward the edge of the bed and Chris crouches down, throws one of Zach’s legs over an elbow, and sucks him in in one smooth motion. His other hand strokes him in time with the bob of his head, and on every third down stroke he swallows Zach into his throat. This might be over so incredibly fast, and Zach’s really not concerned.  
  
He doesn’t notice any other movement, so he jolts when a wet finger circles around his hole and slides inside. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and swears, hears Chris laugh when he pulls his mouth off him. Chris is fingering him open and kissing his thighs, petting his belly; he’s stopped touching Zach’s dick completely.  
  
“Torture,” Zach says.  
  
Chris laughs again, “What?”  
  
“I was so close,” is all he can manage to pant out.  
  
“Yeah, well. I’m not done.” Zach’s cock jumps again and Chris, bless him, wraps his hand around him and tugs a few times, thumbs over the slit collecting precum to use as lube, to ease the friction.  
  
Chris slides his fingers out and stands, pulls Zach a little closer to the edge and rubs the head of his cock around Zach’s hole. He grips behind Zach’s knees and folds him over, pushes in and stills, with just the head inside.  
  
Zach hears something startlingly close to a growl leave his own mouth when he says, “I’m not delicate. You can fuck me.”  
  
Chris replies, “It’s not always about you, Zach. I’m trying my best not to come, here.”  
  
Zach nearly comes right then himself, but he pulls himself together, chuckles, and cants his hips up and revels in the groan from Chris. It does the job, gets him to move forward and seat himself fully inside. He’s still standing straight up, arms outstretched to grip at the backs of Zach’s thighs. Zach pulls one leg away and wraps it around his waist, says, “Come here,” in a low voice. Chris bends forward and presses their lips together, tonguing Zach’s mouth open and sighing into it.  
  
“Chris. Please.” He has to say it into Chris’s mouth because he won’t move away, and he still doesn’t move anything other than his hips when he slides out and jerks back in. He wraps his arms underneath Zach’s back, pulling them chest to chest and thrusting, a blissfully steady rhythm. The new angle is perfect, causing heat and chills to spread through Zach every time Chris thrusts in. The room isn’t cold at all anymore, both of them are sweating, Zach can feel it at the nape of his neck and in the slide of Chris’s arms around him.  
  
They’re well on their way to Zach coming without a hand on him, then Chris falters and stops, mouthing at the corner of Zach’s lips, nipping at his jaw. Zach rolls his hips and gets the opposite effect he’d been aiming for as Chris pulls out and runs a hand through his hair.  
  
“What? What? No, why?” Zach says.  
  
A palm is on his calf less than a second later, then Chris says, “Just needed a minute.”  
  
Twice. Twice now Zach was so close to orgasm he could taste it and Christopher Pine decided to deny him of that. Maybe that was a thing. Maybe Chris was into edging. He vehemently did not think about edging Chris because then he really would come without a hand on him.  
  
Chris pats his calf and they both crawl up the bed to lie normally, and Chris rolls on top of him again.  
  
“I know what we can do,” Chris says, like he just had a bright idea. There should have been a lightbulb over his head.  
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“I could ride you,” he says as he spreads his legs and staddles Zach’s thighs. He wraps his hand around both of them and lazily starts a rhythm. They spend maybe a little too long just watching Chris stroke them both.  
  
Zach tears his eyes away and looks up at Chris’s face. “I thought you wanted to top?”  
  
“I _want_ to do everything,” he says breathlessly.  
  
Zach moans and pulls Chris’s ass to his crotch, rubs his cock between Chris’s cheeks and watches Chris tilt his head back. He’s still stroking himself with a loose fist, rolling his hips into it and then back into Zach.  
  
Fumbling with the lube, Zach coats his fingers and dick, and reaches down to press into Chris. He fingers him slow, dragging his fingertips across his prostate, feeling Chris shiver in his hands every time. He’d be happy to do this forever, just watch Chris slowly fall apart in his lap. He can feel how relaxed Chris is, can feel the slide of his fingers, knows he could fuck him now, but he doesn’t want to stop. So he doesn’t. He can do this now, he has permission, and he wants to memorise every expression, every movement, every sound.  
  
Of course, then Chris shimmies back and whines low in his chest, actually whines, and Zach’s never heard him make that noise before, he’s sure of it. So Zach pulls his fingers out, lifts Chris by the hips and says, “So impatient. You want this so badly, don’t you?” then pulls him back down, thrusting up to meet him in the middle.  
  
Chris groans out a, “Yeah, fuck,” and braces himself with one hand on Zach’s side, the other still around his cock, and lifts himself up, fucks back down. Zach meets him every time, and the sound of their skin sliding and slapping threatens all of Zach’s composure.  
  
When Chris squeezes his hand around himself and makes a small sound on an exhale, Zach finds some leverage in the mattress and flips them. Chris’s hands go immediately to the headboard and flatten, pushing himself down onto Zach when Zach thrusts back in. Feeling Chris’s knees around his chest, squeezing with each push of Zach’s hips, spurs him on and he drives into him again and again just to keep those legs around him. Chris bites his lip, and his eyes are closed tight, brows furrowed, and when he opens his mouth on a silent, “Oh,” lips shaping the word, Zach leans in and brushes his lips over Chris’s ear.  
  
“I want to hear you. Come on,” he says, then scrapes his teeth over his ear, jaw, throat.  
  
Zach wraps his own hand around Chris’s cock and pumps, finally pulling a noise from Chris. He pumps his hand in as close to the same rhythm as his hips as he can get while being this close, and he bites down on Chris’s shoulder. Chris cries out, bucks his hips up, and adds his own hand with Zach’s on his cock and comes with a rough moan, head thrown back into the pillow, shoulders curved toward Zach.  
  
The clenching around Zach’s cock drags the orgasm out of him. He snaps his hips once, twice, and comes inside. Chris groans and says, “Fuck yeah,” and Zach couldn’t agree more.  
  
Zach doesn’t move for a good three minutes. Even if he wanted to, his legs wouldn’t work. He catches his breath and right before he moves to get up he notices that Chris has been running his fingers along Zach’s flank, and pressing his lips to his temple, and he doesn’t complain once that Zach’s just collapsed on top of him.  
  
He goes into the bathroom and grabs some tissue, catches sight of himself in the mirror. He looks sufficiently fucked, and he’s got bite marks on his collarbone and finger-length red lines on his hips and biceps. He’s grinning when he walks back out, takes in the sight of Chris half covered by his sheets, arms stretched out on either side of him. ‘Blissed out’ is the only way Zach can think to describe him.  
  
“All those blankets too warm all of a sudden?” Zach asks.  
  
“Give it time. It won’t be long before I’m snuggled back into them like a cocoon,” Chris says, reaching out to take some of the tissues and wipe himself down. He turns over and beckons for Zach, and before Zach gets in he grabs all the blankets and fixes them up, exaggeratedly tucks them under and around Chris. Chris’s smile is all teeth when Zach comes back around the other side of him. He says, “Thanks,” and wraps himself around Zach, tucking his face into the crook of his neck.  
  
Zach’s immediately too warm, but there’s absolutely nothing in the universe that would get him to move right now.  
  
“We kind of have a lot to talk about, yeah?” Zach asks.  
  
“Shh,” Chris says, in the same tone he’s told Zach to ‘shut it’ a million times, “Go to sleep.” He rubs Zach’s belly with his hand and presses in closer, then says, more seriously, “We can talk in the morning.”  
  
“Okay,” Zach says. And while he’s said it before, over and over, out loud and quietly in his mind, his heart still speeds up before he says, “I love you.”  
  
Chris lifts his head and kisses his cheek, runs his fingers through Zach’s hair and tilts his face to him, kisses his lips. “I love you, too. You have no idea.”  
  
“I think I have some idea. Dork.”  
  
That makes Chris pinch a nipple, but he settles back down, and it’s not long before they’ve both drifted off.  
  
********  
  
That’s the best he’s slept in months, is the first thing Zach thinks when he’s awake enough to have real, human thoughts. The second thing he thinks is, “Oh shit.” He slowly opens his eyes and turns his head to the left and, okay, no, it wasn't all an incredibly detailed dream. There's Chris, sprawled out on his stomach, arms folded up under his pillow. He doesn't look like he's panicking, but then, he's still fast asleep.  
  
Zach’s also not Panicking, but there’s certainly a cloud of anxiety closing in. He’s thinking of the best way to get up, the best way to say good morning. Do they make breakfast together? Do they go for a run? Is it too late for a run? It’s the middle of summer, so if it’s after 8:00am it’s definitely too hot for a run. So maybe he’ll offer to go buy coffee, give them some time alone to process. Unless Chris wants to get out of the house too and he tags along. ‘Tags along,’ like he’s a toddler, god. Chris can do what he wants and Zach would be happy to go get coffee with him.  
  
It’s about at the point where Zach is recognising his own spiral that Chris takes a deep breath and rubs his face into his pillow. It’s cute as fuck, is what it is, and a good distraction. The hand Zach can see poking out clenches and extends, and then Chris turns on his side and slides his arm around Zach’s waist and pulls. He rests his forehead against the top of Zach’s arm and says, “Mornin’,” through a sigh.  
  
“Good morning,” Zach says.  
  
“You’re too awake. Time is it?”  
  
“No idea. Been awake for a while, though.”  
  
“You could have got us coffee. You _should_ have, even. There should be a hot coffee on my nightstand right now, but no, you just had to lie there, thinkin’ too much.”  
  
“What makes you think I was thinking too much?”  
  
“‘Cause you never stay in bed longer’n you have to.”  
  
“Maybe I was just enjoying the company, did you ever think of that?”  
  
“You’ve never enjoyed my company that much,” Chris says, devious, hand wandering lower down Zach’s abdomen. He sounds wide awake, now, too.  
  
Zach snorts. Chris lifts his head finally and smiles up at him and says, “I’m gonna get a shower.” His hair is unartfully disheveled and he’s got a line down his face from a fold in his pillow case and he can barely open his eyes and he’s the most beautiful thing Zach’s ever seen.  
  
“I guess that means I’m going to get the coffee.”  
  
Chris slaps his hip and says, “Thanks, babe,” and then Zach dies. He forgets his name. His name is ‘babe’ now. Forever.  
  
The bathroom door clicks closed and the shower starts before Zach manages to roll out of bed. He gets dressed in what he’s sure are his pants but is not sure is his shirt. Actually he’s sure it’s _not_ his shirt, and it’s also not the one Chris was wearing last night, so who knows how long it’s been laying on the floor. It smells fine. No obvious stains. It’ll do.  
  
He does walk to the coffee shop, even through the heat, to clear his head. Not that it needs clearing, necessarily, but he does need to think. No more panicking, he tells himself, and then buys a decaf to avoid the inevitable racing heart.  
  
Taking the short way back, he doesn’t have enough time to work himself up, but he also doesn’t have enough time to figure out how to go about this, greeting Chris The Morning After. This is new territory, and he’s not a great navigator. He’s pretty sure Chris isn’t either.  
  
There’s music playing when he opens the door, some hipster band he’s never heard, or maybe some little-known ‘70s artist, and he finds Chris in the living room, head leaned back on the couch with his eyes closed, toes wiggling on the coffee table to the beat.  
  
Zach sits heavily next to him, knocks him with the entire side of his body, and all Chris does is smile. Doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t miss a beat. Zach sets Chris’s iced coffee down on the table and, like a sixth sense, Chris opens his eyes and side-eyes him, saying, “You know there are coasters.”  
  
Zach sighs, rolls his eyes, and fixes it. He takes a sip from his cup and leans back, rests his head on the back of the couch, and from this close he can hear that Chris is humming low under his breath. He settles in just in time to hear _There ain’t no time like the time we got right now_ drifting through the speakers. The back of Chris’s hand taps his thigh and he reaches out, threads their fingers together. Chris’s thumb taps to the beat.  
  
Maybe this won’t be so hard to navigate after all. Zach closes his eyes and smiles, squeezes Chris’s hand. Chris squeezes back, and the sun shines through the window, warming the room, warming them, and the song ends:  
  
  


_I wanna be yours, yours, yours._


End file.
